Washington state high-school running back weighs 400 pounds

Tony Picard is 6-foot-4 and weighs 400 pounds. And he’s a running back. In high school.

Such a giant football player might typically play a position like defensive tackle, but Picard’s surprising agility and quickness led his coaches at White Swan High School — in a rural area southwest of Yakima, Wash. — to try him in the backfield. “Big Tone,” as his teammates call him, started out as a lineman and does still play some nose tackle, according to Indian Country Today, an American Indian publication.

But he has made his biggest mark on his team as a fullback and a ball-carrier. After all, it’s nearly impossible to bring him down; he just plows through his opponents, either blocking for a smaller rusher or just taking the ball himself.

Picard ran for more than 500 yards and eight touchdowns for White Swan this year, helping his Cougars to a 9-1 regular-season record and a trip to the Washington state tournament. But White Swan lost 22-14 in the opening round to Colfax High School.

Nevertheless, despite being somewhat oversize for even the NFL, Picard’s athleticism has piqued the interest of some college football teams, according to reports.

“Chances are he’ll be recruited as a lineman, but there’s always a chance that he’ll get his chance to carry the ball on those short touchdown runs,” White Swan coach Andrew Bush told Indian Country Today. “It’s tough to stop 400 pounds!”

Picard, who is part Umatilla-Nez Perce Indian and part Sioux Indian, also plays center for the White Swan basketball team. He gets a lot of stares when he takes the field or court, and he doesn’t necessarily like the notoriety, but he wants to continue playing ball in college, he told the New York Post.

“I don’t really care much about the attention,” he told the Post. “There is a lot of people that kind of dislike (my running the ball), disagree, agree. I’m just playing because I love the sport. I could care less what people think.”